Half done: Rahul Gandhi has fulfilled one of two promises made to Kashmir’s youth

In September last year, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi promised to bring economic opportunity to the youth of Kashmir. He also said he wanted to understand their problems, build bridges with them. Last week, he fulfilled one of those promises, not the other.

On his trip to Srinagar, Rahul took with him the plutocrats of India's business: Deepak Parekh, Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Rajiv Bajaj. This group met CM Omar Abdullah, his father Farooq, local businessmen and other worthies. Some of the tycoons made tentative promises to start some initiatives in Kashmir: placement cells to recruit students, centres to train in finance, maybe a two-wheeler assembly plant.

Even if some of these promises are fulfilled, it will open up new opportunities for youth in the troubled Valley. Already, some of the top organised employers in the region are call centres and helplines run on behalf of mobile telecom players. In an irony typical of Kashmir, text messaging is banned, though conversations are allowed.

In one of the meetings, Gandhi said that peace would have to return to the Valley for big businesses to make big investments. This is true, to the point of being banal. The real challenge to lasting peace is to negotiate and neutralise forces that have a vested interest in keeping the pot boiling, while allowing democratic dissent. This includes the many azadi groups, but also the military, police and intelligence agencies.

To some extent, the state and Centre have managed to keep the militants quiet by repeatedly dividing and discrediting them. Years of bloodshed have also wearied the combatants, so, the nature of protest has changed: from the armed combat of the 1990s to a less-violent intifada-style agitation.

The most pressing question now is, who will guard the guardians? How will the Indian state bring its spooks and security apparatus to heel? When will it scrap laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Public Safety Act? Till these issues are resolved, Gandhi's second promise, of understanding the youth of Kashmir and building bridges with them, will stay unfulfilled.